


Catch and Release

by Manickmondays



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fake AH Crew, GTA!AU, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, i wrote this in three days what the hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 14:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manickmondays/pseuds/Manickmondays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the note says is <em> We got your boy, Vagabond.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch and Release

**Author's Note:**

> Did I name this after a sub-par Jennifer Garner movie? Maybe?  
> Does it matter? No.  
> Inspired by [these](http://m4d-m4x.tumblr.com/post/138906659802/ok-but-what-if-theres-a-firefight-with-another) [two](http://m4d-m4x.tumblr.com/post/138908424052/i-mean-jeremys-probably-shit-scared-locked-up) messages on my blog.  
> Also, when I tag 'Canon-Typical Violence' it's typical of a GTA game. It's nothing too bad, just a little more descriptive than usual.

“No. No, no, nononono _no!_ ” He was gone. Ryan’s cries grew louder as he ran to the lookout spot that Jeremy was _supposed_ to be at, only to find his gun a few feet away, an obliterated earpiece, and his shattered sunglasses lying in a blood spatter. Under the sunglasses, when he looked a little closer, was a note. It too was sprayed with blood, but its message was quite clear: _We got your boy, Vagabond_. That gnawing fear that had started when Jeremy didn’t cheer along with them after their success grew into an all-consuming rage. He sank to his knees to try and stop himself from commandeering Michael’s entire ordinance to destroy every gang in the city until Jeremy was safe and back in his arms. It wasn’t working, and he shook with the need to do _something_ to get him back, _anything_.

“Rye? God, Rye what’s happened?” Ryan didn’t turn to the sound of Gavin’s voice, just staring at his hands and the blood on the gravel roof. He could barely hear the crunch of Gavin’s shoes as he jogged closer and dropped to one knee in front of him, kneeling in the blood. “Ryan, talk to me, what’s going on?”

“I don’t-“He took a breath to steady his voice, not looking up, “I don’t know who, but someone has Jeremy.” Gavin had pushed up his glasses, showing just how _tired_ he looked, how worried he was. He cupped Ryan’s neck gently, forcing Ryan’s watery eyes to meet his through his mask.

“Can- can I take the mask off you, love?” Ryan’s nod was shallow, but there, and Gavin stripped the black skull off of him, tossing it to the side a ways. Mask off, Ryan felt exposed enough to let tears fall, streaking his face paint further as the tears slid down his cheeks.

“I’m gonna fucking destroy whoever has him.” Ryan’s voice shook with rage, and his face was twitching a little for the set in his brow. “I’m gonna put a bullet in each one of their miserable fucking skulls and another in the heart for good measure.”

“We’ll get him back, love. I know we will, and we’ll make the people that got him pay for what they did. Nobody fucks with us, yeah?”

Ryan was silent for a few moments until a sob choked its way out of his throat, “I failed. Gavin, I fucked up he was supposed to be safe here but he would have been safer with us I didn’t trust him and it’s my fucking fault he got got.” Gavin sighed and cradled Ryan’s head close to him, not minding that he was ruining his shirt with the face paint streaking across it.

“You didn’t fail. You did what you thought was best, you tried to keep him safe and I _know_ he knows that.” He pressed a kiss to Ryan’s head, feeling him still shaking. He looked up to see the rest of the crew standing there on the rooftop, worried looks plastered on their faces. Gavin shot them back an appropriately dire face, and watched as their shoulders dropped. “The rest of the crew is here to help, and we don’t have to do this alone. We _all_ care about getting him back safe, and none of us’ll stop until he’s back. It’s not your fault, and you don’t have to fix it alone.” Gavin spotted the note under his knee and lifted it, snatching the note up. He looked it over for a second before pulling Ryan back to look him in the eye, “I’m gonna go get this note to people who might be able to tell us more about where Jeremy might be, alright?”

It took Ryan a second, but he nodded, looking like he surprised himself with his own motion, “Yeah, I- I need a minute.”

“Alright. I’m just over there if you need me.” He placed a final kiss to Ryan’s forehead, staining his lips faintly red before getting up to show the note to Geoff.

“What’ve you got, kid?” Geoff’s face had a hard set to it, mouth a thin line. Jack and Michael were flanking him, looking just as worried.

“Nothing but this.” He handed the note over, no one saying anything for a minute. Eventually the tension was just too much for Gavin and he had to say _something_ , “I don’t know who can tell us anything about it. Trevor, Kdin maybe. If we get desperate I hear Rubin from the Fakehaus crew is good with this kind of stuff and after that I don’t-“

Geoff laid a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, stopping him mid-sentence, “I know people, Gav, don’t worry about that. And if the people I know can’t help, then I know people who know _more_ people. That’s not the part I’m worried about. How are you? How is _he_?” He nodded towards Ryan for emphasis.

“Me? I’m fucking worried and could probably collapse into tears if you gave me a minute. Please, spare me the embarrassment and try not to give me a minute.” He sighed, “Ryan’s…” He turned to look at Ryan, still kneeling but now turning the shattered sunglasses over in his hands. “He feels responsible for this, especially because he was trying to keep Jeremy safe by putting him up here. I think he’ll be ok enough that it won’t consume him, make him go back to… back to the way he used to be before the crew. I think it might take more than that nowadays.”

“That’s good. He was…” Jack trailed off, all of them knowing, and it didn’t really have to be said.  

“Yeah.” Gavin’s voice broke the silence, somber, quiet.

“But, anyways, we’ll do anything we can to help get him back. He might be your boy, but he’s _our_ crewmember.” Geoff gave his most sincere smile, even managing to make it reach past his tired eyes.

“Nobody fucks with a lad and lives to tell about it.” Michael crossed his arms sternly with a wicked little smirk, and Gavin could see the explosions in potentia in his eyes. Geoff nodded, as did Jack, smaller and more serious smiles on their faces.

“Nobody fucks with _any_ of us and lives to tell about it.”

* * *

 

It took a week to find him. It took four days to whittle away at possible rival gangs, then three more to find where said gang had been hiding him. The gang had managed to get him out of Los Santos; the address Geoff’s contact gave Gavin was in San Fierro, and Gavin had broken down in tears at the sight of it. They had managed to get him six hours away with no one noticing, even with nearly half the criminal population on the lookout for odd movements like that.

Ryan, when Gavin told him, only asked whether he should drive or if Gavin wanted to, and started packing.

The drive was tense and quiet, the air thick with worry. Gavin only let go of Ryan’s hand to let him shift. He kept his eyes trailed on Caleb’s car in the side view mirror, hoping that things wouldn’t be bad enough to need him. It was a naïve hope, he’d been taken enough times to know that it got ugly and stayed ugly for a long time, but he had to hold on to something good.

The address turned out to be a warehouse, like it always was, recently bought out by some less than reputable owners. The gang that had bought it out had only just begun trying to expand territory past San Fierro, and almost no one major in Los Santos had even been paying attention, too busy to focus on a couple of stick ups here and there.

And then, of course, the next logical move was to kidnap a member of one of the strongest crews in Los Santos, a sort of criminal greeting.

The Fake AH Crew would not be returning the greeting favorably.

Gavin sat on the edge of the trunk, checking his gun as many times over as he could while Ryan somberly loaded his minigun, mask on and a cursory swipe of grease paint around his eyes. The automatic pistol had never failed him before, and he was sure it wouldn’t now, but he hadn’t stopped worrying for a week and wasn’t about to stop until Jeremy was safe.

“Ryan?” Ryan looked up from his task, eyes cold.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me he’s gonna be fine, and that we’ll bring him home safe.” Gavin thumbed at the filigree etched into the barrel of his gun.

“I don’t lie to you, Gavin.”

“Just-“His voice hitched, “Just _please_ tell me this will all be ok.”

“Alright, Gavin.” He set the gun back down in the trunk, suspension whining in protest. “This will be fine, and we’ll have him home soon.” Ryan stopped the hand worrying over the pistol with his own, prompting Gavin to look up at him. “I promise.”

“Thank you.” Ryan gave him a stiff nod and hoisted the gun up, grunting softly with the effort of it.

“You ready to go in there?” Ryan’s tone was too emotionless and clinical for what they were going in there to do, but at this point it was standard practice for him to shut down emotion when things got too rough.

“I want our boy back. Let’s get in there.” Gavin couldn’t quite see it, but he _felt_ the smile behind Ryan’s mask.

As soon as Ryan kicked in the door to the warehouse, all hell broke loose. Luckily, hell was on their side and they quickly dispatched the few guards that were initially in the main room. Gavin downed a couple more that ran in, firing over Ryan’s shoulder with a shouted ‘Got you covered, love.’

It was almost easy, the way people filtered in from other rooms in the warehouse only to be mowed down by a hail of bullets. The crew either couldn’t afford to outfit their guards with bulletproof vests or didn’t think they’d need them, and Gavin didn’t know which was more laughable. Not that he felt like laughing, his face stoic behind his flashy sunglasses as he dropped guard after guard after guard. It was almost methodical, and he stopped seeing the sprays of blood flying from bodies as he fired. He could hear Ryan’s frustrated shouts even over the gunfire, and from behind his mask.

And then, there were no more guards, and Ryan had no more bullets, and just one lone man stood in a blood-flecked suit brandishing a butterfly knife.

“I’ll admit, Vagabond, you’re pretty impressive. Though, bring enough bullets to a fight and you’re bound to win.” He chuckled, delicately twirling the tip of his knife against his fingers like a damned Bond villain. “And I hear you’ve survived a lot of things, lot of things that would leave other men dead. But no one survives a knife to the heart, not you,” He pointed the tip of the knife at Gavin, “not me, and not the Vagabond.” He raised his arm as if to hurl the knife, but it clattered to the floor as a rapidly growing rosette of blood spread through his white shirt. He crumpled to the ground, quickly turning into a lifeless heap.

“Why’d you let him live that long?” Ryan growled, voice husky from the shouting.

“Like to give these pricks a final speech. Least they don’t go out like total bitches. My way of paying respect before I put a hole through ‘em.” Gavin should have been casual about the statement, flippant and carefree as he usually was on jobs, but the words lay thick in the air with the stench of blood. Ryan grunted softly in response. “Let’s get looking for-” Gavin was interrupted by a faint but distinct shout of their names from one of the small offices, large window boarded up with a couple pieces of plywood. They shot a look to each other before Ryan dropped his gun to the ground with a solid, metallic thud and they took off towards the office.

Gavin tried the door knob, and unsurprisingly, it was locked. So he did the logical thing, took a step back and shot the thing off the door. It swung open a bit to show the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light coming from inside, and Gavin quickly pushed it open to see one of the worst sights of his life.

There was one thing in the room, a chair, facing the boarded up window, and Jeremy’s battered form was slumped in it, hands tied behind him. He barely lifted his head up as the door swung open, and he looked _tired_ , so very tired, and pale and weak and like neither of them had ever seen him before. Gavin took a half-second to process the image before him and then was on one knee next to him, kissing his temple softly and then cradling his head close.

“We’re here, darling, you’re safe, we’ve got you.” He murmured against Jeremy’s skin, careful to avoid the still tender looking scab above his eyebrow. Ryan knelt behind the chair and started sawing at the rope with a pen knife, trying to get the binds off his raw looking wrists. He had been trying to escape the whole week he was there. As soon as his arms were free he had them thrown around Gavin’s neck, fingers tangling in his hair and then pulling tight, as if he might never have the chance to again.

“I was so scared, Gavin.” His voice shook and Gavin could feel the tears starting to spread on his shirt.

“I know, Jeremy, I know, but we’re here now, Caleb’s just outside to get you cleaned up and we won’t ever let this happen again, yeah?” Gavin kept his voice calm and soothing, despite the fact that he was anything but.

“I knew you’d come, as hard as it got to believe the longer I was here, and I kept telling them the Vagabond would be out for their blood and they didn’t believe me; told me I had been here for two weeks and there was no sign of you… but I knew it couldn’t be true.”

“It’s been a week, darling. They lied to you, they absolutely did, and we spent that whole time looking to find who took you.” Jeremy pulled back to look Gavin in the eyes, cracking a weak little smile, “Oh god, are you missing a tooth?”

“Yeah, but I spit it in the face of that suit dickhead, so it was worth it. Maybe…” He winced, “Maybe not worth the stab in the side I got for it.” Ryan was beside him instantly at that, mask having come off since he had knelt behind the chair to undo Jeremy’s wrists.

“He _stabbed_ you?” His voice was grave, brows knitted together in worry.

“Not that deep, and they bandaged it up, but yeah.” He pulled away from Gavin a little more to inch up his shirt to show a relatively fresh bandage on his side. He gave a grim little half smile and lowered his shirt back down. “They fucked me up pretty bad, but usually patched me up. It still hurts, but you know.”

“We need to get you out to Caleb immediately.” Ryan laid a gentle hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, eyes going soft for what seemed to Gavin like the first time in a week. “Can you stand?”

“With you guys’ help, sure.” Gavin got back onto both feet, but stayed low so Jeremy could wrap an arm around his shoulders. He stood, wobbling a little, but eventually steadying when Gavin put his arm around Jeremy’s waist. Ryan dug his phone from an inside pocket of his jacket and told Caleb to be ready when they got out there, and that it wasn’t exactly pretty. He scooped up his mask, tucking it under his arm and watching the pair nervously.

“I got him, you grab your gun, do what you need to destroy evidence and meet up with us at the car, alright, love?” Ryan nodded, a little stiffly, before relaxing a bit.

“I won’t need to do a lot of clean up. I want the rest of their crew to know who did this.” They both gave him a smile, Gavin’s a little more reserved, and left to let him do what he needed.

It was slow going, but they got him out the kicked-in door where Caleb was waiting close by, gloves already on. Gavin refused to totally let go of him, as much as Caleb insisted it might make his wounds worse. He had spent a week worrying about him and needed to keep making sure this wasn’t some fever dream brought on by stress.

He followed them to over where Caleb had hauled a gurney out for him to sit on, a little bit grander than any of them thought was strictly necessary, but it gave Caleb a place to work while Gavin sat on the tail gate of his truck. Gavin kept his distance to let Caleb work, but he watched carefully. Their conversation slipped by idly as he watched, _Have you eaten in the past week? Only some weird protein shake stuff_ and he was too focused on taking stock of the cuts and bruises that dotted Jeremy’s body. Ryan hadn’t been exaggerating when he said it wasn’t pretty, _How much have you slept? Couple hours at a time, I guess? I’m pretty tired if that helps,_ he was pale, and every cut was such a stark contrast to the pallid tone of his skin. _Have these bandages been changed recently? Probably not as much as you’d like, but they’re pretty fresh. Guess they didn’t want me dying or anything. Never let me bleed for more than a couple minutes._

Ryan came out a couple minutes later, carrying the minigun with him. He put the gun and mask in the trunk of their car and made his way over to the rest of them.

“How’s he doing?” Ryan crossed his arms, and Caleb straightened up after taping a bandage down.

“A lot of this will scar, but they didn’t hit anything critical and if you keep all this clean it shouldn’t be all that bad.” He shot Jeremy a sympathetic look, “It’s not gonna be great, and if he really needs pain meds I have some stuff, but he’ll be fine.” He turned a bit more towards Jeremy, “Eat, sleep, and don’t come into work for at least a week.” He looked between Ryan and Gavin. “And you two makes sure he does that, and it’ll be ok.” Both of them nodded, and Gavin hopped off the tail gate, coming a little closer to the gurney.

“You ready to go home, darling?” Jeremy grinned, already brighter for the two of them being there with him.

“Never been more ready to do something in my _life_ , babe.”

The ride back, long as it was, wasn’t nearly as bad as the drive there. They took turns driving this time, so that both of them could spend a little time in the back with Jeremy. He mostly slept on Ryan’s shoulder when he was back there, and then Gavin dozed lightly on his. When they got back into Los Santos a couple hours after the sun had sunk below the horizon, Gavin started awake and blearily dragged out his phone to let Geoff know they were back. He kept the conversation brief, not wanting to worry Geoff too much and talking him down from coming over and seeing how Jeremy was doing.

They both helped Jeremy walk this time, wanting to get him into the elevator quickly and away from the prying, curious eyes of citizens.

Jeremy broke down into tears when they opened the door of their apartment.

“I thought I’d never see this place again sometimes.” Gavin tried not to let his gentle smile betray the memory of the six months he spent captive, but by the look Ryan gave him, his eyes said too much. He shook the memory off with a shrug of his shoulders and leaned down to brush the tears away with his thumb.

“How about we all just go and bloody s _leep_ , yeah? It’s been a long day for all of us.”

“I think-”Jeremy wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, “I think that sounds pretty good. Rye?”

“All I’ve wanted this past week was to have you here with me when we slept, so that sounds perfect.”

There was a very different sort of quiet than the one that had been consuming it for a week that took over the apartment as everyone got ready to sleep. It was companionable, the quiet between people who don’t always need to speak to feel like they’re not alone, rather than the oppressive silence of a home usually filled chatter now fallen silent.

They all clambered into their cobbled together bigger-than-a-California-king sized bed, Ryan and Gavin very deliberately letting Jeremy slide in between them. Ryan pulled Jeremy close, kissing his forehead and letting Jeremy bury himself in his chest. Gavin laid a hand delicately on his side, avoiding the cuts, and ran the other hand through his hair soothingly. He was home, he was safe, and Gavin wanted him to know that without even saying it. Then, for good measure, he started murmuring all of the things he had wanted to say during that week that he just wasn’t able to. How much they missed him, how glad they are that he’s safe, how much they love him. He spent a lot of time with the last one.

And they were there when he woke up in the middle of the night, tears streaming down his face, and clutching at their shirts. They were there to assure him he was safe, and that they would never let that happen to him again, and they were there every night it happened afterwards.

Eventually, they kept the nightmares away all together.

**Author's Note:**

> This is from the same 'verse as my other fic [Three's A Crowd](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941879/)  
> Wanna send prompts, yell at me about fic or just stop by to say hi? Come an talk to me on tumblr at [m4d-m4x](http://m4d-m4x.tumblr.com/)


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